by Abby Green
He didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that a lot of his rebellion had been as much to do with testing the boundaries—seeing what it would take to get him expelled from the family completely—as it had with getting his father’s attention. And, if he was honest, his half-brothers’ attention too.
But Nikos didn’t welcome this introspection, and he had a sense that Maggie was seeing far too much.
‘You say you’d do anything for our son? I can offer you and Daniel a secure and stable life. A luxurious life. That’s more of a guarantee than love will ever give you.’
Maggie’s teeth worried at her lower lip and Nikos had to curb his urge to reach out and tug it free. The waves of desire that had beat so furiously just a short while before were still there...just under the surface.
‘We have something far more potent and tangible than love between us. Desire. And a child.’
‘Desire won’t last for ever, though...and then what?’
Nikos didn’t have an answer for that, and it irritated him intensely. He usually had no problem getting people to agree to whatever he proposed.
Maggie spoke again. ‘This is a lot to think about.’
Frustration at how off-centre she made him feel made Nikos’s voice sharp. ‘You’ve had a year to think about it.’
She paled and he felt a stab of conscience. You should have tried harder to find her.
He pushed the inner voice down and forced a more conciliatory tone into his own voice. ‘I think we can do better for Daniel. He deserves better.’
‘You’ve barely looked at him.’
Nikos’s chest constricted when he thought of that tiny vulnerable body. That dark hair.
‘I have no experience with babies. It’ll take me some time to adjust.’
Maggie couldn’t say anything to that. He was right. She’d had a year to adjust to being a mother. She’d had the experience of carrying Daniel inside her. Giving birth to him. Bonding with him instantly. Even though motherhood still terrified her, she’d found it an easier adjustment than she’d expected.
But what Nikos was suggesting was a quantum leap into a dimension she’d never considered.
‘If I did agree to marry you how would it work, exactly?’ she asked.
‘I think five years would be enough time to give a lasting impression of stability and create a secure base for our son. Then we can come to an arrangement about custody.’
Five years.
Maggie felt breathless. ‘And where would we go...where would we live? I don’t even know where you’re based.’
‘I’m mainly based in Paris, but I have apartments in New York, London and Athens. My apartment in Paris overlooks the Eiffel Tower.’
The perfect location for an international playboy.
Maggie felt a bubble of hysteria threatening to rise. Worse, she could still feel the imprint of Nikos’s mouth on hers. Hot and demanding. He might have implied that he hadn’t slept with anyone else since he’d slept with her, but she’d be naive in the extreme to believe that.
‘Can I think about this?’ she asked.
Maggie could see the struggle on Nikos’s face. Evidently he wasn’t used to not being given answers in the affirmative straight away. Well, tough.
‘You can—but we don’t have much time before the press sniff around and find out what’s going on. What I’d like is for you and Daniel to leave with me when I return to Paris tomorrow afternoon.’
Maggie felt winded. ‘Daniel doesn’t even have a passport.’
Nikos waved a hand. ‘I can arrange all the travel documents. We’ll be flying privately, which makes things easier. Things move fast in my world. The sooner we can contain and manage this situation, the better.’
So she and Daniel were a situation?
Any vaguely romantic notions Maggie had entertained about meeting a nice, kind, dependable man were truly incinerated by now.
Feeling a little shell-shocked, she said, ‘I need to get back to Daniel. And I need to think about all of this...’
To her relief, Nikos went to the suite door and opened it. She felt so raw after that kiss and the ensuing conversation that she knew if he touched her again she would have had no defences in place at all.
He said to her, on the threshold, ‘You know what’s best for our son.’
She looked at Nikos. She did—that was the problem. And the other problem was that she didn’t trust herself around Nikos, and agreeing to his plan would put them in close proximity, and close proximity spelled danger, because everything was turned on its head now and she was facing a scenario she had no idea how to navigate.
Marriage.
As if reading the turmoil in her head, Nikos said, ‘I have yours and Daniel’s best interests at heart. You’ll be a very wealthy woman for the rest of your life, and life with me won’t be boring—I can guarantee you that.’
Oh, she was sure it wouldn’t be boring. Every second with this man was a rollercoaster of emotions and sensations.
‘Maybe I want boring,’ she said.
That cynical look came into Nikos’s eyes. ‘Then I’d have to say it’s too late. You made a choice last year and you didn’t choose boring then, did you?’
No, she hadn’t chosen boring last year. She’d jumped into the fire and got burned in the process.
In the end Maggie knew she didn’t really have a choice. She’d expected Nikos to want to have nothing to do with them—in fact that would almost have been easier, in some perverse way.
Because he affects you.
And not just that, Maggie thought, feeling guilty, but because it was what she knew.
But more importantly there was Daniel. And the fact that Daniel’s grounding years could be spent with two parents—together. Giving him a start in life that neither Maggie nor Nikos had had.
How could she argue with that?
She’d called Nikos late last night and told him over the phone that she would agree to marry him.
There’d been a beat, and then he’d said in a deep voice, ‘You’re making the right decision, Maggie.’
His car had picked her and Daniel and their paltry belongings up earlier that morning.
It had proved surprisingly easy to extricate herself from the life she’d built at the Barbiers’ stud. Which had been a reminder of how her mother had picked up and moved with each new job, and a reminder that Maggie wanted more for her son.
She knew she had to live with the consequences of her actions. Yesterday in that hotel suite had been an example of how little control she had around Nikos. She’d all but thrown herself at him. Seduced by his sheer charisma. By his power.
Like mother like daughter.
She resisted the snarky voice.
‘Are you comfortable enough?’
Maggie’s head jerked around. She’d been watching Dublin drop away beneath the private plane, still reeling from the sense of just how different her life was going to be.
It had hit her when they’d arrived at a private airfield and she’d seen the gleaming black jet inscribed with the Marchetti Group logo. And when she’d seen the plush cream leather interior. Solicitous staff had offered Maggie everything from tea and coffee to champagne.
Now they were in this luxurious bubble high above the world and Maggie wondered if she’d ever touch the ground again.
‘What’s going on in that head of yours, Maggie?’ asked Nikos. ‘I can’t read you and it makes me nervous.’
‘And you can read everyone else?’ she asked, in an effort to deflect him.
His mouth tipped up on one side. ‘I’m an excellent poker player.’
Maggie wondered if his ability to read people had been born out of growing up in a relatively hostile environment, surrounded by people who didn’t care for him. She hated that it had an impact on her, because Nikos s
eemed immune to needing anyone.
‘What if Daniel doesn’t want to be heir to a fortune?’ Maggie asked, feeling a little desperate as this new reality sank in and thinking of her tiny, vulnerable son.
‘Would you deny him his heritage?’
She opened her mouth and shut it again. Of course she wouldn’t deny him. ‘It doesn’t matter to me if he doesn’t have a fortune. It only matters if he’s happy and healthy.’
Nikos’s mouth firmed. ‘A noble thought, but not very realistic. Think of the opportunities I can provide our son.’
Our son.
Maggie looked at Nikos. Even like this, lounging in his seat, he oozed barely leashed energy. His face was stamped with generations of arrogance and pride. He was from a long line of men who were used to being obeyed.
She desperately wanted to see him show some kind of emotion for Daniel. To have some inkling that he wasn’t viewing him like some abstract object.
She said, ‘I’m not interested in marriage if you’re not going to be a father to Daniel. All the stability and security in the world can’t protect him from a father who doesn’t love him. I don’t know if I can trust you to do that.’
Nikos’s gaze flicked briefly to Daniel, where he lay in Maggie’s arms. An expression she couldn’t decipher passed so quickly across his face that it was gone before she could wonder what it was, or why she’d felt it like a soft blow to her belly. She wondered if she should have been so blunt... But surely Nikos Marchetti was cynical down to the deepest part of his marrow...
Wasn’t he?
Nikos didn’t like the sensation that Maggie could see right inside him to where he had his own doubts about whether or not he was capable of being the kind of father he’d never had himself. All he knew was that the thought of not being in his son’s life made his chest tight.
He said, ‘I didn’t know until a few days ago that I even had a son. I think you owe me the benefit of the doubt as I try to have a relationship with him. The last thing I want to do is cause him harm.’
Maggie’s cheeks pinkened. ‘I guess that’s fair enough.’
It struck Nikos then that he was renowned for brokering huge deals with the most recalcitrant people in the world—and yet here, with Maggie, even that grudging concession felt like a massive victory.
The thought that he’d met his match in more ways than one made him edgy.
The seat belt bell pinged, indicating that it was okay to get up and move around, and Maggie undid her belt, and the one clipped around the baby, and stood up.
‘I’ll go into the back and feed and change Daniel.’
Nikos watched her walk down the aisle of the plane, Daniel safely in the crook of her arm. He wasn’t unaware of the irony that not so long ago it would have been a very different scenario for him on a jet like this—featuring him and a woman, sometimes even two, unencumbered by anything but the mutual desire to lose themselves for a brief moment.
Because that was all it had been—a brief moment of respite from his ever-present sense of rootlessness and dissatisfaction. And those moments had never filled him with anything but an aftertaste of ennui.
Sleeping with Maggie hadn’t felt like that.
No. She’d lingered on his body and his brain for months. Making him ache.
She was the woman he wanted. And she was the mother of his child.
When he’d found her at the Barbiers’ stud he’d had no idea about the secret she kept. His son. But he was nothing if not skilled at adapting.
He’d learnt young not to expect people to accept him or want him. But he knew Maggie’s reluctance for this marriage would turn to acquiescence when she saw the life he could provide for her and his son.
‘When you said “apartment,” I assumed you meant an actual apartment—not an apartment in a hotel.’
Maggie was standing at the wall of a terrace at the top of an ornate baroque building looking out at the Eiffel Tower. It was so close she could almost touch it.
She’d only been to Paris once before, on a school trip. She couldn’t quite believe she was here, in this sophisticated and beautiful city.
Ireland had been enjoying an unnaturally warm summer, but this heat was on another level. A trickle of sweat pooled between her breasts and at her lower back as she looked at people strolling on the plaza near the Eiffel Tower wearing little sundresses and eating ice-cream. She was envious.
‘Everyone local leaves Paris in August,’ Nikos had told her as they’d driven into the city. ‘They’ll return over the next few days and the city will come back to life after the vacances.’ He’d gestured to the crowds thronging the wide boulevards. ‘These are all tourists,’ he’d said, in a tone that signified disdain.
Maggie had been too distracted by the exquisite architecture, the tall and majestic buildings...
Nikos came and stood beside her now. ‘All my apartments are in hotels that we own. The MG Hotel Group. I’ve found it more...convenient.’
Maggie looked at him, glad of the sunglasses hiding her eyes. ‘You own this hotel?’
He nodded.
She should have guessed. When they’d arrived Nikos had been fawned over like visiting royalty.
She thought of something. ‘So the house in Ireland—that’s the only house you own?’
If she hadn’t been looking at him she might have missed the flicker of an expression she couldn’t decipher across his face, the slight tension in his body.
But he sounded nonchalant when he said, ‘Yes. Like I said, I bought it when I thought I might invest in horseracing.’
Maggie sensed he was being evasive and wondered why her question had pushed a button for him...
But now he stood back and said, ‘Let me show you around.’
Maggie followed Nikos back into the apartment. Daniel was asleep in his baby seat, so she left him where he was. It was much cooler in here, with the air-conditioning.
She tried not to let her jaw drop as Nikos showed her the vast apartment. The gleaming state-of-the-art kitchen had her hands itching to try out the ovens.
She said, ‘I suppose you don’t use this room much?’
‘No. I’m not ashamed to admit I just about know how to boil an egg and that’s it. I’m certainly not at your level of proficiency. That’s all Mathilde’s domain.’
‘Mathilde?’
‘The housekeeper here. She looks after a couple of the apartments and lives in one herself. She comes and goes. You’ll meet her tomorrow. There are some prepared meals in the fridge.’
Maggie made a note to explore later, following Nikos again as he led her through a media room and into a long corridor with rooms off each side. His office, a gym with a lap pool, and then the bedrooms.
He opened a door, letting her precede him. ‘This is yours and Daniel’s suite.’
She avoided his eye, stepping inside. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but she told herself she was relieved she had her own space. There was a small room for Daniel beside hers, an en suite bathroom and a walk-in wardrobe. Empty at the moment.
He was leaning against the doorframe. ‘I’ve never shared my bedroom with a woman, and even though we’ll be married I think it best that we have our own space.’
Maggie kept her expression carefully neutral. ‘That’s fine—I’d prefer that.’
And she told herself she meant it, even though she felt a little hollow inside. Of course a man like Nikos would feel stifled by something as domestic as sharing a bedroom with his wife.
He straightened up from the door. ‘After you meet the stylists tomorrow they’ll stock up your wardrobe.’
Maggie felt self-conscious. ‘I have clothes.’
He responded smoothly. ‘I know, but you’ll be expected to dress to a certain...standard—and naturally I don’t expect you to pay for that. Plus you’ll need evening dres
ses for functions like the one we’re going to tomorrow night.’
That stung—but what had she expected? Nikos owned part of the world’s largest luxury conglomerate. Of course she’d have to look a certain way.
And then she thought of what he’d just said. ‘Wait...what function?’
‘It’s a gala charity event—we’ll use it as an opportunity to appear in public as an engaged couple for the first time.’
Suddenly Maggie felt insecure. ‘I don’t think I’m going to fit into this world very well.’
Nikos took her in: the plaid shirt, the worn jeans. Her hair up in a haphazard knot, with tendrils falling down. No make-up. Scuffed sneakers. Yet still she managed to exert a pull on his libido that was unprecedented. Not even her scruffy attire could hide her very natural beauty.
‘You’ll fit in just fine with a little polish. I’ve already released a statement announcing our engagement and the fact that we have a son, so the news is out. We were already papped on the way in here. Impossible to escape them in Paris.’
Maggie had the sensation of a net closing around her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that?’
Nikos looked perplexed for a moment—and then Maggie understood.
She answered for him. ‘Because you’re not used to deferring to anyone else. Well, for starters, you can inform me of anything that affects me or Daniel before you tell the rest of the world.’
Nikos looked unrepentant as he said, ‘Then I should probably inform you that I’ve arranged for us to be married next week by special licence.’
Well, she’d asked for that.
Her legs felt suspiciously weak. ‘When did you organise all this?’
‘Yesterday after you left the hotel and while we were on the plane.’
She absorbed this.
‘Maggie?’ he said.
She looked at him, feeling as if things were spinning out of her control. ‘I know I’ve agreed to marry you—I just hadn’t expected things to move this fast. Why does it need to happen so quickly?’
Nikos’s mouth firmed. ‘Because image is everything in this world, and the sooner we put out a united front, with Daniel, the sooner any speculation or gossip will die down.’